The National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NIE NTU, Singapore) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to boost research and innovation in educational technology.
The partnership aims to prepare future-ready educators, accelerate applied innovation, and position Singapore as a global beacon of educational technology excellence.
“This strategic partnership signifies a shared commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technologies to transform education in Singapore. Together, we are transforming how teachers teach, how students learn, and how research shapes real-world policy and practice,” says Professor Liu Woon Chia, NIE Director.
A key initiative under the MOU is the establishment of a Technology for Education Centre (TEC) at NIE’s campus, which will anchor NIE’s efforts to foster the creation and development of innovative educational technologies and solutions. It will provide dedicated spaces for prototype testing, supporting agile development and real-time feedback from authentic educational contexts. This paves the way for scalable, research-driven solutions to real-world educational challenges.
The TEC will offer NIE student teachers a hands-on environment to explore artificial intelligence (AI) and digital tools in teaching. Through initiatives like the AI in Education Innovation Workshop and hackathons, they can ideate, prototype, and refine tech-enabled classroom solutions.
With access to AWS cloud services, pedagogical mentorship from NIE faculty, and technical guidance from AWS experts, student teachers can also gain practical experience in design thinking, ethical AI, and digital fluency – skills essential to shaping future classrooms.
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Faculty members can use the TEC to explore new tech-enabled teaching methods. Be it piloting blended learning, testing intelligent tutoring systems, or co-developing prototypes, TEC enables educators to ground innovation in both practice and evidence. It also supports faculty-led efforts in digital fluency and offers a real-world testbed to study impact before scaling.
Meanwhile, the TEC empowers NIE’s professional staff to drive innovation within their functional domains by exploring AI solutions that improve operational efficiency and service delivery. With access to AWS infrastructure and targeted workshops, teams can prototype bots, dashboards, and smart systems that boost productivity and strengthen institutional agility.
For researchers, the TEC provides an immersive space for applied research in AI, learning analytics, and emerging educational technologies. It supports the design, testing, and evaluation of prototypes in real-world settings, helping translate theory into scalable classroom solutions. With access to real-time data, cloud tools, and collaborative spaces, NIE researchers can fast-track their work while co-developing with students, educators, and industry partners.
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Beyond the TEC, AWS will offer a range of digital learning resources, including self-paced courses and training programmes like AWS Skill Builder to strengthen competencies in cloud technologies among educators and NIE staff. This complements NIE’s mandatory digital literacy modules for its student teachers, says Liu.
Elsie Tan, AWS’s Singapore country manager for worldwide public sector, says that the company will work with NIE to “select key digital skills and design the curriculum” to keep up with evolving demands.
She adds: “Educators shape our future workforce. By combining the NIE's expertise with AWS's AI technologies in experiential learning, we're supporting Singapore's Smart Nation vision to develop digitally-empowered teachers ready to address tomorrow's challenges with confidence and digital fluency."
Building digital fluency
The NIE-AWS partnership also emphasises tackling real-world educational challenges through service-learning projects that empower the NIE student teachers to co-develop meaningful solutions for their communities.
Under the new MOU, both parties will enhance existing efforts to effectively integrate technology into teaching and learning practices. AWS cloud services will be incorporated into NIE’s Digital Enablement programme and embedded within teacher education, expanding the use of cloud computing and AI in education. Learning initiatives, including AWS Skill Builder and cloud-based simulations, will help NIE staff and educators build expertise in cloud and AI technologies for teaching, learning, and research.
To stimulate creativity and problem-solving skills, NIE will host an AI in Education Innovation Challenge in October 2025. The competition invites student teams to design, develop, and deploy AI-powered tools addressing real educational challenges.
The challenge has two stages. The first focuses on ideation, where teams receive mentorship from NIE faculty and AWS AI experts through workshops and guest lectures to explore creative and responsible AI uses in education. The second stage emphasises hands-on development, with shortlisted teams refining prototypes using complimentary cloud credits and specialised training. The challenge culminates with a live showcase, where teams present to judges and compete for awards based on innovation, usability, and impact.
Future plans under the NIE-AWS collaboration include co-hosted hackathons, workshops, and student-led forums on AI ethics in education. Topics will cover bias, surveillance, data privacy, and human-AI collaboration. These initiatives will offer platforms for educators, researchers, and industry to test and adopt new educational technologies.
